Word: royals
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...most part receded into memory in this impoverished Himalayan nation. Since then, a Maoist rebellion found its way into power, transformed the kingdom into a republican democracy and abolished the monarchy altogether last year. Yet the current government, headed by the former rebels, still indulges in periodic bouts of royal-bashing, often to paper over the increasingly apparent shortcomings of its own rule. As fuel lines in Kathmandu stretch more than 2 km and power cuts ravage the country, the Maoists announced last month their intention to form a commission to revisit the massacre eight years after it happened, tightening...
...another new twist, Paras also told the New Paper he may return to Nepal and participate in electoral politics, heading up a party of "young professionals and bankers." But it seems unlikely the deeply unpopular 37-year-old - an embodiment, for many, of royal excess - would gain much from such a venture. "That's what everyone in Nepal is laughing about," says Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times, a Kathmandu-based weekly. "It's remarkable how quickly people here have otherwise forgotten the monarchy," he says...
...Maoists, though, who waged a decade-long war against the royal army, have not forgotten so easily. A recent trip to India by Gyanendra, who lives quietly in a private residence in the capital, prompted howls of outrage from members of the government who are wary of his dealings with Nepal's influential southern neighbor. The Maoists, observers say, need to raise the specter of royalist nefariousness to boost their own flagging support. "They need to create a sense of threat, of a larger enemy, to distract the people from their failings," says Dixit...
...face of all this, few in Kathmandu expect much from the inquiry into the royal family's murder. Many other questions remain unanswered from Nepal's decade-long civil war. More than 13,000 people died, many of them civilians, at the hands of both rebel and government soldiers. But neither the Maoists nor elements of the old royalist regime have heeded calls to investigate charges of war crimes. "Not a single case has been prosecuted so far," says Manjushree Thapa, author of Forget Kathmandu, an award-winning history of the conflict. "As ever," she says, "we Nepalis...
...including in Burma, Sri Lanka and India's nemesis Pakistan; India has transformed a beautiful bay in the southern state of Karnataka into an advanced naval installation. Chinese strategic planners look jealously on the fact that India has an aircraft carrier (the recommissioned H.M.S. Hermes, purchased from the British Royal Navy and now called the I.N.S. Viraat...